Desperately Broken
by Tristitia Cesso
Summary: When Sasuke left Sakura five years ago she was desperate for love and married the first guy to give it to her. Now, finding herself in a deathly situation, she writes a letter to her old love only to have it sideswiped by his light hearted roommate...
1. The Letter

Dear Uchiha Sasuke;

You don't know me, probably don't even remember my name. I'm just another person in your life that you passed by as you went on to find what you were looking for, whatever that was. But now I'm not going to give it to you because now you have no right to know it.

We used to talk daily, do you remember? If you weren't there one day, I always thought my life was uncomplete until I heard from you again. I have no idea what you ever thought, but you talked. I told you everything, you made me feel unbroken for once. I could breathe around you without catching my breath in a sob. Do you remember that? Do you remember being a pillar for me to stand on? Of course not.

You only ever saw me once. But once was enough to judge, even though you knew everything about me inside seeing the outer me was enough to never talk to me again. You acted like every other asshole I ever met, and I thought you knew me. I learned one important thing from you – and that was to never trust what someone said about me.

But I didn't want to believe that, I refused to believe it. I valiantly hoped that you had just been an ass all along even though I knew you hadn't been. Do you know where I am now? I'm stuck. Desperate to be loved, to be believed, I married the first man who said I was beautiful. I wanted so desperately to be beautiful, to be something other than rejected and despaired. Did you know my husband beats me? I have black and blue marks all over my back and arms, I can't wear anything short sleeved. He tells me I'll always fail, never succeed no matter what. He calls me ugly too, just like you did that one time. So I guess it's true after all, that I really don't have any hope of being anything else. He says that I'm doomed for life if I ever leave him, the only way I could ever be anything is if I do everything he tells me too.

I believe him. I have nothing else to believe. The only hope I cling to know is maybe I'll get someone out of this who really does love me. Do you think I will? I don't know, but it's the only thing I can hold to now. That maybe someday I'll get out of this if I have someone who really truly loves me.

I guess the only reason I'm writing this letter is too tell you what you did to me, how thoroughly you broke my heart by saying that to me – what you did when you never spoke to me again. Did you know I'm desperate?

Love,

Desperate Girl You Never Loved

Hello by Evanescence


	2. The Smell of What?

Naruto bounded up the sidewalk heading home from a full day of classes. He had half an hour to eat, shower, and change his clothes before heading to work. He barely had a second to waste but, like a good roommate, he stopped at the mailbox to grab the daily allotment of junk mail and other unmentioned garbage.

Ditching his Nikes behind the filthy couch, he thumbed through the assortment on his way to the kitchen. Junk, junk, bill, junk, Sasuke's Accounting Journal, Naruto's Game Pro, bill, handwritten perfumed letter addressed to Sasuke WTF?!?

Naruto stopped halfway in the fridge to stare confused at the plain white envelope with soft, loopy handwriting. Who'd write a love letter to Sasuke? Sure he was cute, but they were in Grad School, not middle school! Besides, he was a total hard ass – he didn't deserve love letters!

Naruto quietly shut the fridge door and glanced around. Only one way to find out her wrote it, right? He slid his thumb under the flap. He'd just blame it on the postman, no one liked the postman, especially Sasuke. It'd be just another excuse to make Sasuke believe he hadn't swiped his National Geographic. His thumb began to sneak along the crease…

"What are you doing, Fox?"

Naruto jerked. "Owww! Look what you did to my thumb, man! Dang!"

The Uchiha looked over his roomies' bouncing shoulder. "Is that mine?"

"Yesh," Naruto said, injured thumb in mouth. "Wait, no. No it's not, it's mine."

Sakura flipped the letter out from the Uzimake's hands and read the address. "Yes it is, you bastard. Why are you reading my mail?"

"No, it was the postman." Naruto mumbled, abused appendage still in mouth. "Seriously.."

Sasuke snorted and slit the flap, pulling out a single sheet of cheap notebook paper. For a few seconds he read it over quickly, forehead wrinkled, before crumpling it in his hand and threw it in a slow smooth arc into the garbage can.

"Hey!" Naruto complained. "I wanted to read that too!"

"It's just a bunch of bull shit," Sasuke said shortly. "Aren't you supposed to be getting ready for work?"

Naruto paled. "Oh, shit, shit,shit! Food! I need food!" He whirled for the fridge and Sasuke took the distraction to make his leave. It wasn't her, it couldn't be, the Uchiha said to himself. It was only a prank – nothing to worry about.

"I'm bored…" Naruto moaned into his arm, his head in his hands and forearms resting on the counter. He was confined in a four feet by five foot ticket booth with ten minutes to go in his shift. He was the last person in the movie theater besides the poor asses in the theater watching the movie, and it was his job to close everything up after they had left – with only half an hour left before midnight and he couldn't wait to leave. With a noise quite similar to a raspberry, he gently knocked his head against the glass. He's been consumed with curiosity about that letter since he'd left for work and realized that the Uchiha had managed to trick him once again. He looked at the clock again and groaned – knowing his luck Sasuke would have taken out the garbage by the time he got back!

The bell over the entry door let out a merry ding and Naruto frowned. People were supposed to be leaving, not entering! He looked up merely to tell the bastard to leave, then decided it was better to sink into his seat and try to hide. "No, no, damnit, shit!"

"Naruto, baby!"

Naruto swore under his breath, she'd seen him. "Go away Ino! I have to close up in-" he glanced up at the clock and exaggerated "2 seconds! You'd better split."

"But honey, I'm bored…" Naruto's ex girlfriend, stuck out her lower lip and rich-girl pouted, unconsciously repeating the exact same words Naruto had just been repeating to himself. "I want to go do something fun."

"Not tonight, I have school."

Ino heaved a heavy sigh. "Really?"

"Yes, really. I have two papers to write. Ok?"

"Ok." Ino stood there smiling at Naruto, not moving, not saying anything, just standing there smiling until Naruto couldn't stand it anymore.

"What!" he cried, hands over his head. "What do you want??"

"How's Sasuke doing," she chirped, leaning against the counter opposite him. "I haven't heard anything from him in awhile."

"He's fine." Naruto growled. He hated this subject being brought up, after all Sasuke was what had split the two of them apart thought Naruto had since thanked him, a relationship with Ino could only ever be painful. "The same hard ass he was last time you asked."

"Oh." Ino tapped her baby pink nails against the counter then jumped up with a grin. "Hey Babe, want to go out again?"

"NO." Naruto stated firmly. He turned and began to pull down the shutters over the windows, the last few viewers were beginning to walk out of the theater. "Besides, you only went out with me last time to get close to Sasuke because you wanted to kiss his cute ass. I'm not falling for that again."

"Oh." Ino followed him around as he closed and locked the back door, opened the bathrooms to air, and turned off the projector. "But I'm bored, Shinji dumped me."

"He probably had a reason." Naruto opened the door for Ino to go through so he could lock it after her and, hopefully, head home. "Besides, you should look for good guys – not just the rich druggies that your parents like."

"Like you?" she chirped, grinning widely. Naruto groaned, he'd fallen into that one.

"No, look why don't you go try at the bar up the street?"

Ino turned the wrong way and squinted. "Ok, where is it?"

Naruto groaned again and grabbed her arm to herd her to his car, he probably shouldn't let her wander when she was in a state like this. "Ino, are you drunk?"

"Nope! I'm not drink, I only had a few drunks." She giggled and stuck her tongue out. Naruto wordlessly opened his passenger door open for her – he definitely shouldn't let her wander now, he might as well just drop her off at her house before he went home. He sighed, her mansion was a good ten minutes out of the way and he hadn't been lying about those papers. Well, he'd only lied about one of those papers.

"Naruto…" Ino breathed. She had crept up close to him in the car and was now snuggling in his ear. " I feel so sad when I think about Sasuke. "

"Why'd you do that for?" Naruto asked, trying to steer and keep her off him at the same time.

"Because of what happened to him…" she murmured. Naruto shuddered; her hands were definitely trying to go somewhere they didn't belong. "… and his family, it's just so sad…"

"Yeah, well Sasuke doesn't like people being sad over him." With one hand firmly on the wheel, he managed to push her back in her seat and buckle her back up. An effort she undid the second he removed his hand. "For the love of… Ino! Get back in your seat. Please, for the love of all that is holy stop trying to grope me!"

Ino giggled. "God, you're so funny, Sasuke!"

"Naruto," he corrected her. "My name is Naruto." He glanced over. Good, the dumb blonde was finally starting to fall asleep. He looked ahead and groaned, dead asleep with her house right up ahead. Go figure.

Pulling in through the gate, he stopped at the ornate path. "Ino…" he called. "Ino, wake up. You're home."

Ino didn't wake up. Instead she rolled over onto her stomach and murmered "So sad…"

Naruto frowned. She wasn't still on that, was she? Ino shifted her weight again, then called out "Itachi!" then quieter "So mean…" Naruto nodded his head, he could agree with that but then she continued with "So cute…" and he shoved his door open in disgust. If she didn't want to wake up, he'd just have to walk her up the path.

Lifting her out of his beat-up Mazda, he half carried half guided her up on the front porch and settled her on the swing. With a last glance, he gently brushed her hair off her face then whispered "Goodnight, druggie," softly. Then he rang the door bell to alert her parents of the arrival of their bundle of joy and headed back to his car – finally, time for sleep.

He was in such a hurry, he was halfway up the stairs before he remembered the mysterious letter and with a groan he almost left it where it was. But like they say, curiosity killed the cat, or fox in this instance, and before he knew it he was up to his elbows in ramen soup containers getting orange sauce on his wrist.

With a triumphant pull (and a quick dodge to the right to avoid the upheaval of garbage) he managed to extract the now slightly soggy notebook page from the trash and was smoothing it out on the counter to read.

But he'd only managed to read up to 'Dear Uchiha Sasuke' before his eyelids began to sink and his vision blur. Taking a glance at the clock he groaned in dismay, it was already almost One o'clock. With a bitter sigh he headed to bed, stopping at the couch to deposit the paper into the folds of his Gender Economics class book which he then returned to his back pack. At least it'd give him something to do other than sleep when his teacher started to drone. With that done he headed upstairs to get in a few winks before Nine o'clock class.

"Naruto, are you paying attention?"

"Yes Ma'am!" Naruto snapped up straight in his chair, leaving the mosquito he'd been playing with to fly away from the desk to freedom with sheer relief.

Mrs. Robins gave him a questioning look, then turned back to her PowerPoint to finish explaining why women in Third World Countries contributed more to the economy when they had less children compared to those who had more. Naruto sank back in his chair with a heavy sigh – Economics was so boring!

His economics book had been serving as the torture table for the poor mosquito, but now Naruto flipped it open to the chapter they were covering because reading something was better than doing nothing.

The letter flew out with a rush and landed in his lap.

Yes! Finally! Naruto hurriedly grabbed the slip before it fell further and laid it next to the page in his book to make it appear he was actually studying and quickly, hurriedly, read it.

Shocked, he read it again.

This wasn't a love letter, it was a letter for help – a desperate plea for someone to come to her rescue, to save her from an existence she no longer had control over. From a fate she had doomed herself too.

For a brief second Naruto considered it being a prank. No, he decided. No one could write something this painful, this deep, for just a prank. The perfume from the letter, some kind of fruity blossom, wafted from the folds of the paper and Naruto read it again, looking for some kind of hint or clue as to who had written it.

"Naruto?"

Naruto started up in shock, "Mrs. Robins! I was paying attention this time – Honest!"

"Naruto," Mrs. Robins explained kindly. "Class is over, everyone else is gone."

Naruto jerked his head to look, the room was indeed empty. Her job done, Mrs. Robins turned back to pack her things. "Wait, wait! Mrs. Robins! I have a question." She turned back to him, silently waiting for the question. Naruto, spotlight on him, suddenly didn't know how to phrase it. "Mrs. Robins, how, well.." His mouth gaped like a fish for a second. "What is Domestic Violence?"

Mrs. Robins' forehead wrinkled. "Naruto, you do know this is Gender Economics, right? We don't really cover domestic abuse."

"I know, I was just wondering. You do know, right?"

Mrs. Robins nodded her head slowly, and pursed her lips. "Yes, I did a lecture on it once, awhile ago. It's a big deal now days, a lot more people are involved in abusive relationships then you would think, mostly because the victims attempt to hide the fact that they are in a painful relationship. Most people who have never been in a abusive relationship never understand why other people stay in them. They usually result from broken families or simply people who never really felt they fit in. Am I boring you?"

Naruto shook his head and Mrs. Robins shrugged. "Well I have to get to my next class, and I think this room is needed soon. So why don't you stop by my office later this week and I can give you a copy of a really good book on Domestic Violence, alright?"

Naruto nodded in agreement and started to pack up his books. Mrs. Robins smiled, "You're going into Politics, right?" Naruto nodded again. "Then Sociology would be a really good thing for you to go into as well, it's really important today. Not enough people give it the interest it's due."

"Thank you," Naruto said whole heartedly. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Robins. Have a good day."

Mrs. Robins smiled as Naruto grabbed his stuff and made a beeline out of the classroom. He really was such a fine young man, she hoped he did well in whatever he went into. Hopefully he'd stay in politics, America would do wonderful with someone like him in charge. Picking up her bags, she left to go change some other young punk's world.

Naruto ran to the campus cafeteria and sat himself down in the most quiet, remote section of the tables. He had a letter to write and he didn't want to get interrupted.

He set a sheet of paper before him and got a pen out of his pocket. Then he had a dilemma. What should he call her? Desperate Girl who Sasuke Never Loved? Girl? Never Loved?

He bit down on his eraser and glared at the table. What the hell kind of problem is this? He should just call her what she called herself, but he didn't want to sounds like one of those 'Dear Anne' articles. He was deep in his thoughts when Ino attacked.

"Naruto!" Arms enveloped him from behind and Naruto jerked spastically. The pen in his mouth died an unfortunate death, ink spewing out of Naruto's mouth and down onto the table and paper.

"Ino!" Naruto spat ink, his lips were dyed black and his shirt was officially ruined. "What the hell, Ino!"

"Where's my car, Uzimake?" Ino threatened. "I swear to god if you lost it!.." She let her promise drag and Naruto gulped even though he was not at fault.

"I swear to god, Ino, I have no idea where it is." He explained. "You showed up dead drunk at the theater last night, I have absolutely no idea where you left it!"

Ino slumped. "Damn, now I really don't know where it is!"

She looked so sad, Naruto leaned over and patted her shoulder. "There there, just find out where you went to drink last night and I'm sure you'll find. Probably with a couple of tickets, but I'm sure you'll find it."

Ino smiled, instantly cheering up. "Thanks, Naruto! I'll go ask Professor Tsunade if she remembers where we went last night."

Naruto gaped. "You went clubbing with Tsunade?"

Ino nodded happily. "Yep! Thank you!" She stared at him for a few seconds. "You do know you shouldn't digest ink, right?"

"Thank you for your infinite wisdom…" Naruto sighed. Ino shrugged and got up to leave while Naruto looked down again at his paper. What about that perfume on her note? What was it again, that flowery scent… The pink one…

"Hey, Ino!" he called. The blonde turned back.

"Yeah, Naruto?"

"What's that one flower called again, the one that grows on cherry trees and is pink sometimes and white othertimes?"

Ino's brow furled. "You mean the Sakura blossom?"

"Yes!" Naruto's fist pumped the air. "The Sakura Blossom, thank you!"

Ino smiled and waved. "Ok, bye!"

Naruto pulled another pen out of his back pack, and fresh sheet of paper. On the top he neatly printed:

Dear Sakura… 

Dear Jaimie…Sincerely Me by HelloGoodbye


End file.
